Since an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus has a merit such that an image can be observed on site in a simple operation of just bringing an ultrasonic probe into contact with a body surface, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is widely used to examine a function or a shape of the biological tissue. In recent years, estimation of a motion function of a biological tissue such as a motion of a heart wall, and more particularly, estimation of a motion function in three-dimension has been drawing attention.
Patent Document 1 discloses an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus used to estimate the motion function of the biological tissue. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus extracts characteristic points from a two-dimensional image of the biological tissue and designates measurement points on the basis of the characteristic points. Then, a template having a size including a predetermined number or more of characteristic points based on each of the designated measurement points is set, and a cross-correlation process between two images is carried out by using the template to measure a physical parameter such as a displacement or a velocity of the tissue, whereby the measurement precision is increased.
Patent Document: Japanese unexamined patent application publication No. 2004-313291